


someone whose soul can be molded

by coalitiongirl



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: 4B, Dark Emma, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-24
Updated: 2015-02-24
Packaged: 2018-03-14 23:13:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3429074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coalitiongirl/pseuds/coalitiongirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dark!Emma, because that promo destroyed me just a little bit. Based mostly on assorted speculation for 4b. </p><p>  <i>Emma's face is wiped free of emotion, nothing left but a grin under empty eyes. “My parents made me into their little weapon, turned the gun at you and pulled the trigger and then wiped their hands clean.”</i> </p><p>  <i>She can’t imagine that Snow would…yes. She thinks of her mother in Storybrooke, of Snow standing in front of her with a smile that promises the world and a box in her hands with Cora’s heart inside it. Yes, she can. If the fate of her kingdom was in the balance? Yes.</i></p><p>  <i>Emma spreads her hands wide, palms out, and grins the self-deprecating grin of someone who isn’t grinning at all. “And shit, I think I’m fresh out of bullets.” </i></p>
            </blockquote>





	someone whose soul can be molded

Regina wakes up on a bed in a dark room in silence. Her hands and legs aren’t bound, which is promising and worrying. Promising, because she can just walk out of here, can’t she? Worrying because  _dammit,_ the only people who wouldn’t bother tying up a witch are the ones who know exactly what to do with one. 

 

“Mal?” she says, sitting up in the bed.

 

“Nice guess,” says a familiar voice, and Regina’s head swings around to gape at her. Emma smiles, something wild and dangerous in her eyes. “But nope.” 

 

“Emma!” She lurches forward and Emma catches her, her fingers triggering a burst of static electricity as they land on Regina’s wrists. “We’ve been looking for you for days! Henry’s been put in hiding. Hook was  _killed_ during the search.” They’d found his body in the woods where he’d been following Cruella, his heart ground into dust over his face. She might’ve loathed the pirate, but her own heart had dropped at the idea of telling Emma about his death.

 

“Oh, I know.” Emma smiles again, her expression at odds with the Emma that Regina knows. Her fingers are still around Regina’s wrists, firm and unmoving, and Regina yanks one of her arms away, unnerved. “I was there.” 

 

“When Cruella killed Hook? Are you…” She peers at Emma again, struggles to see past the cool smile and figure out what’s going on inside of her head. “Are you okay?” 

 

“It wasn’t as hard as I’d thought,” Emma muses for a moment. “I always thought that…I don’t know, it would hurt more. That you squeeze and suddenly your whole life changes. But I don’t feel any different.” 

 

_Not Cruella_ , Regina realizes, the chill settling down from her chest through her body. There’s no mistaking the look on Emma’s face, not anymore. She’s seen it in the mirror before, the moment when you  _cross over,_ when you stop caring and  _the queen is dead. Long live the evil queen._ Something had happened to Emma, had stripped away her control and made her love it. “You killed Hook.” 

 

“Did anyone care?” Emma’s eyes are bright with amusement now, though all Regina sees are the shadows lurking behind them.

 

“We thought…I thought you would.” Emma’s hands is sliding down her arms now to her torso, fingers trailing across her blouse and lingering where the buttons meet. Regina shivers. Emma looks very pleased about that. “He was your…” 

 

“He was just a distraction.” A finger slides between the fabric of the shirt to brush at her stomach and Regina summons years of being- the cat, never the mouse, Emma doesn’t know what she’s capable of- and resists recoiling. “I killed Cruella, too. Sorry. I know it’s your thing to save the day.” She sounds wholly unapologetic, her face bored with the conversation as her eyes still gleam with hunger that has Regina craving her and tense at once.

 

“You’re the savior,” she says. 

 

It’s the wrong response. Emma’s face turns dark and ugly, and this is the first time she looks like  _Emma_ , like the Emma who’s rough and uncultivated and brimming with pain. “Not anymore,” she murmurs, her finger hooking into Regina’s shirt and tugging it forward. “Tell me something, Regina.” 

 

“Fine,” Regina whispers. This is a power struggle she refuses to engage in, not with Emma. Power struggles with Emma mean Henry gets hurt, mean months of warring and two women too stubborn to back down. She can win this only by not fighting back.

 

And somewhere inside of Emma right now, she’s certain that Emma is struggling for ownership of her own heart. “Tell me if you knew what my parents did to me,” Emma says, and Regina freezes.

 

“Did to you?” she repeats, bewildered. 

 

Emma’s eyes scan her face and the finger pulling at her shirt loosens. “Oh, good,” she breathes. “I was so worried I’d have to punish you for it.” 

 

And because Regina is atrocious at self-control where Emma Swan is concerned, she growls, low and challenging, “You could try.” 

 

In the dim room, Emma an alien being tonight, it seems the most natural thing for them to do when Emma pounces onto her with such force that Regina slips back and lets out a furious curse and claws at Emma in response, digs her fingers into the curve of Emma’s neck and shoulders until Emma hisses with pain. She lets her go, presses her palm to Emma’s chest and reaches  _inward_ , grasps her heart and hesitates. 

 

“Heart of true love.” Emma laughs like she’s having a seizure, silent, gasping twitches while Regina’s hand closes on it. “Even if that wasn’t a lie, you’d still be able to take it out.” 

 

_A lie?_ she thinks.  _Still be able to?_  she thinks.

 

Emma is studying her again, an eyebrow quirked. “Don’t tell me you never noticed.” She’s hovering over Regina, suspended as Regina hangs onto her heart, and she pushes forward with a gasp as Regina’s hand tightens against it. “I’ve been following you around like a lost puppy for…too long, now. I wish I was more ashamed about it.” 

 

Regina pulls out her hand, her gaze locked with Emma’s, and leaves the heart behind. “You won’t want to see that right now.” 

 

“Do you think I’ll be scandalized?” Emma dives down to grasp Regina’s clothed breast over her own heart, squeezing it hard. “Is that how you feel when you think about yours?” Regina bucks under her, curling her legs around Emma’s thighs and flipping them to disengage Emma. She trails a hand along the bump of Emma’s collarbone above her tank top, watching goosebumps erupt and more static bursts between them. Emma jerks, eyes sharp and demanding. 

 

She hesitates for a moment and Emma’s hands are on her back, sliding along her shoulder blades over her thin shirt and pulling her closer, lifting Regina up and back against pillows. Regina gulps in a breath. “Emma, wait.” 

 

This closeness with Emma has never been something she’d believed would be…anything but a stray daydream. And Regina still isn’t entirely sure that she isn’t a captive here and this is  _them_ , they of the unresolved sexual tension and the very, very platonic friendship that they’d barely managed to hold together for this long. And now with Emma like this, teetering on the edge of a precipice and preparing to leap, she can’t in good conscience take advantage of it. 

 

Emma smirks up at her, hair splayed around her in a halo of gold. “This is the cliche, right? I get to wear black leather and mack on girls if I’m evil.” The smirk intensifies, lighting Regina on fire, and to hell with  _good conscience_. 

 

She pins Emma down, hands against her arms, and Emma struggles in her grasp, lurching up and fighting for dominance that Regina refuses to cede, breathing in hard at the sensation of muscles flexing against her thighs. “You kill one boyfriend and you think you're evil? Please. You’re not even close.” 

 

Emma wrenches free of her grip on her legs and Regina bites at bared skin until she stops moving, shuddering as Regina kisses the underside of her jaw carefully, gently, and Emma groans a long, “ _fuck._ " An instant later, Regina is being maneuvered up by Emma's attentive grip, flat against the headboard as Emma crawls forward to trap her in. 

 

“I’m gonna take every last inch of you and make it mine,” she breathes, and there’s the  _not Emma_ sensation again, this Emma who feels wrong and twisted into something she’d have never wanted. Regina hates it and needs it at once, leans back and feels Emma’s tongue trailing lightly up to her ear. 

 

“No one possesses me,” she grits out, and Emma’s teeth tug against her earlobe and she can’t stop the frantic movements, the need that erupts from her core and demands  _more, harder, faster_ and her thighs are clenched together now, knees against Emma’s torso, the whole of her quivering and defiant and very, very good at fighting it.

 

“Even if you wanted it?” Emma whispers, sly confidence on her face. 

 

This, at least, sobers Regina up at once, the energy coursing through her dissipating at once. “I never want it.” 

 

They stare at each other again, still fully dressed and too close on a bed, and Regina says, “A lie?” and touches Emma’s tank top over her heart again.

 

Emma shakes her head, cool and collected again. “All a lie. My parents made a deal with these three- two, now,” she says, cruel smugness in her voice. “They imbued me with their power to defeat you. True love was never my power. Light magic?” She snickers. “A fucking lie.” 

 

Regina stares at her, startled, and Emma shrugs. “Not that it matters. I’d just resigned myself to being…I don’t know, white Jesus. Their perfect little miracle child who breaks curses and runs around town being useless but getting patted on the back for it a whole fucking lot.” 

 

She laughs, a little louder and wilder than she’s ever laughed before, and Regina can hear it echoing with the force of a teenaged queen who’d done her best to pretend and failed. “You know, every abandoned kid out there convinces themselves that their parents really loved them, that they wanted them, that there was  _something_ in the way that meant they just. Couldn’t. Keep. You.” Her face is wiped free of emotion, nothing left but a grin under empty eyes. “My parents made me into their little weapon, turned the gun at you and pulled the trigger and then wiped their hands clean.”

 

She can’t imagine that Snow would…yes. She thinks of her mother in Storybrooke, of Snow standing in front of her with a smile that promises the world and a box in her hands with Cora’s heart inside it. Yes, she can. If the fate of her kingdom was in the balance? Yes.

 

Emma spreads her hands wide, palms out, and grins the self-deprecating grin of someone who isn’t grinning at all. “And shit, I think I’m fresh out of bullets.” 

 

Regina leans against the headboard, Emma perched on her knees opposite her. “What are you going to do?” 

 

Emma prowls around her to the side of the bed where she’d begun, sitting back down crosslegged on her chair. “I’m going to watch this town burn.” 

 

“Emma–“ A thought occurs to her, a question she’d forgotten the moment she’d seen Emma. _Why am I here?_ She’d been…somewhere in the woods, heading toward Gold’s old cabin, and then she’d woken up here. “You _are_ holding me prisoner, aren’t you?”

 

“Oh.” Emma grins, standing. “You noticed that, did you?” She reaches for something on the shelf that Regina suddenly notices with alarm is Gold’s dagger. Their last line of defense against him and the others, and Emma had taken it with her. “I got this, too. No superheroes protecting Storybrooke anymore, right?” 

 

Her first thought is the only one she can have, and Emma says immediately, “You know Henry’s in a safe place. Don’t worry, he won’t know about any of this. I learned from the best.” She leans in again to slip her fingers beneath the waistband of Regina’s slacks, more confident now, and Regina does recoil. “And now the town gets to try to defend itself without a savior.” 

 

Regina stands abruptly, feels magic flow through her and then sputter at her fingertips. Of course. If she’s in Gold’s cabin, it’ll be warded against her. Emma watches her, shaking her head. “Don’t you ever get tired of it?” 

 

“It?” 

 

“Fighting all the time for these people who hate you. You’ve saved their lives dozens of times by now, and they’d still go after you with pitchforks if something went wrong.” Emma steps forward, her fingers still pressing against the skin below her waist, a little too low for propriety. “They’ll never love you. And you don’t owe them anything anymore.”

 

And yes, she _knows_ , but that doesn’t mean she has a choice anymore. She’s chosen this side and it means always fighting, always doing the right thing, even if it becomes a thankless task. She’s learned that from _Emma._

 

Emma, who brushes the tips of her fingers along Regina’s cheek now in what’s barely a touch and has Regina wanting suddenly to weep. “They love us for what we do for them. Never who we are.”

 

“You’re not wrong,” Regina concedes, a little breathless. These are the things she can’t say anymore, not without disappointment from Henry or distrust from Snow. She’s meant to accept the burden of resented hero because anything else is _worse_ , is a path she can never go down again. And Emma speaks, speaks, says secrets they aren’t allowed to think about. “But…doesn’t that…what we do says more about us than about them, right?” 

 

“Fuck if I know. All it says is that we’re the idiots they managed to rope into being their watchdogs.” Regina takes a step toward the door, terrified. This room is toxic for her. _Emma_ is toxic for her right now. Emma is whispering pretty truths in her ear and they’ll be her undoing. 

 

Emma is stepping in front of her again, blocking her path. “Come on, Regina, I know you’re like me. I know that we’ve only ever been their weapons,” she coaxes. “Isn’t it time we get to pick where they’re pointed?” 

 

 There’s earnestness in her eyes, Emma still lingering under the surface, and this isn’t the result of some spell or curse. Emma right now isn’t something she can cure. It’s only just…Emma, reaching her limit. “I have been through so much fucking shit in this town. I’ve been manipulated and maneuvered by _everyone_ , been forced to accept that it’s my duty to make everyone else happy. And I let it continue because I thought…I don’t know, that my parents loved me. That I was taking care of people who needed to be _protected_.” She laughs. “I’m not a protector. I’m an untrained soldier.” 

 

“You’re Emma.” Regina wrenches out of her grasp again and takes control, lays a gentle hand against her heart. “You protect them because you love them. I know you’re angry right now–“ 

 

“I’m _nothing_.” Emma doesn’t move, stands very still under Regina’s touch and her eyes shine with contained malice. Not directed at Regina. “Same as you. We’re locked in this town because we love, because we’re prisoners to it. I know how you…you throw your whole heart into love even when you get nothing in return. Regina, let them fight their own battle this time. We’re done.” 

 

“I’m not done.” She has to escape this room because Emma makes a frightening amount of sense, and she bolts, runs through the empty cabin to the door and emerges outside the wards. 

 

Emma is behind her an instant later, hand on her wrist and eyes flashing. “I don’t want to have to fight you. I know you won’t hurt me.” 

 

“You don’t know anything.” She blasts Emma with a light wave of magic, powerful enough to slam her against the wall of the cabin, and Emma swings her arms, nearly effortless, and blows Regina back in response. She breaks free and summons a fireball. “I know. Your parents are atrocious at parenting. We knew that already. They shipped a newborn baby off to Maine and expected her to save the day.” 

 

“Tough love, huh.” Emma without restraint doesn’t hesitate with her magic, doesn’t work on concentrating or focusing or anything but hate and anger. And hate and anger always make for easier magic. Regina had spent years struggling to hold onto her anger to fight, and she can barely hold Emma back when a virtual _sheet_ of blue and white winds whirl into her like blades.

 

She lets them cut through her and heals herself at the same time, draws on all the affection and gratitude and love she has within her for Emma Swan to protect herself from it. “So what?” she demands. “Do you want me to tell you it isn’t justified? That you deserve better? Of course you do.” She makes a fist and punches with it, catching Emma in the stomach with a balled-up blow of magical energy. “Does it make a fucking difference? No. You’ll still hate yourself when they’re dead.” 

 

“I’d have to _care_ to hate myself,” Emma retorts, an ugly sneer on her face. “And I won’t. Not anymore.” She hurls more magic at Regina, pins her up against a tree and holds her there. Regina goes limp and waits. “Three days, Regina. Three days with Cruella De Vil telling me that it’s all for naught, that I was only ever meant for darkness, that my mother thought about the baby inside her and decided to doom me just to fuck with you. _Give me the tools to succeed_.” She laughs. “Savior because of a curse. Savior because I was molded into this person. Here I am. Here we are.” She steps forward, close to Regina as she drops the magic, and Regina punches her in the gut.

 

Emma grabs her by the hands, holds them over Regina’s head against the tree and kisses her, Regina slipping her tongue into Emma’s mouth and tasting blood. She closes her eyes and kisses her back with the same ardent loss of control, of Emma pressed against her and her body energized with just a kiss, their hands above their heads and unable to do any more.

 

And when reality returns, she kisses Emma one more time and then bites hard enough on her lip to make her bleed. “I made myself,” she snarls. “Not your mother. Not Rumplestiltskin. Not my mother. Me.” The magic flows from her, white and sharp and burning, and Emma falls back, howling in agony. Her skin is still clear but Regina knows that white magic meeting dark burns like salt on a wound, leaves no mark but scours all the same. 

 

She closes her eyes and disappears, reappearing in the center of town.

 

There’s a dragon in front of her, and Ursula's morphed into a full-fledged tentacle beast and this is it, Rumple is looking on and there are people screaming and running, people falling to the ground and people already on the ground. Snow is standing next to a fallen dwarf, firing impotent arrows at Maleficent as a tentacle squeezes her around the waist. 

 

Regina throws out a hand and severs the tentacle and Snow cries out, “Regina!” 

 

“I’m here. I’m here.” She’s hurling fireballs at Ursula now, firing other magic at Mal, and it isn’t enough. She can fend off one but not both, not without Emma, but she keeps going.

 

Snow comes to stand behind her, firing arrows into her fireballs and streamlining her attacks, sharpening the aim and stretching out the reach. “For a minute there, I thought you’d found Emma,” she confesses, and she sounds terrified about that, too. She’s been crying at night, Regina knows, desperate to find the daughter who hates her now.

 

“I thought Emma had been imbued with true love magic, not darkness,” she counters, hearing Snow’s strangled gasp at _that_ revelation. 

 

“We thought we had no choice. We were afraid of _you_!” 

 

“There’s always a choice.” She gets in a good blow at Maleficent’s sensitive lower jaw and Mal screeches and swoops down, flying toward her. Halfway to her, David thrusts a sword into her belly and she screeches again and retreats.

 

But Ursula is still smiling from her spot and Rumple hasn’t stopped for a moment, unfazed at Mal’s defeat. And Regina knows suddenly, knows who they can feel coming, and she says urgently, “Snow. David. You need to run.” 

 

She’ll spare them all if she can, keep them from this new heartbreak, but it’s too late. A cloud is reforming ahead of them, just in front of Ursula, spinning around faster and faster into it’s a tornado of energy in one place, the darkness emanating from around her, and Snow gasps again as she finally sees the face growing more visible behind the cloud of energy. “Emma?” 

 

Emma stalks forward. Regina shifts to stand in front of Snow but Snow is already shoving past her to rush to Emma. “Emma! We’ve been so worried.” 

 

Emma smiles coldly. “You should have been.” And she reaches into Snow’s chest in one smooth move and yanks out her heart. 

 

Snow gapes at her. “Em – ma?” she says. Emma squeezes the heart and she chokes, falling to her knees. 

 

“Isn’t this what you want?” Emma demands. “Isn’t this the magic you gave me? Isn’t this what you all wanted?” she roars, glaring at everyone left standing in the street. “Abandoned as a baby to go save your town. _Groomed_ at fifteen by someone I loved to be her magical little sister. Framed and dumped into jail at seventeen because of my _destiny_.” She laughs, wild and manic. Her hand is clenched around Snow’s heart and Regina’s too wary to approach and retrieve it. “You threw me into this world with magic I never wanted and stripped every last little piece of me away. I’m done. I’m done with all of you.” 

 

“I love you,” Snow chokes out. 

 

Emma gazes down at her dispassionately. “You can always try for another little girl to love, I’m sure,” she says, and then blinks at the heart in her hand and grins. “Or not.” There’s a shout from behind her, David racing toward her, and Emma hurls him into the clock tower with a sickening crash of shattered glass and a scream.

 

Emma turns, looks away to meet Regina’s eyes, and a slow smile spreads across her face. “I’m waiting,” she says, and Regina shakes her head.

 

“You can’t do this, Emma.” 

 

“Stop me,” Emma purrs, and oh _god_ , they’re kissing again, Emma with one firm hand in Regina’s hair and the other still clutching her mother’s heart between them. “Come closer, Regina,” she breathes. “Come on. You know you want this.” She squeezes the heart and it pulses faster. Snow lets out another scream. “Help me end this all. We can be finally happy. Finally ours.” 

 

Emma kisses her harder, hot and wet, and she’s wanted this for…forever, had persuaded herself that it would never happen. Emma’s lips on hers. The two of them united and Emma whispering promises and intoxicating understanding to her. And she wavers for a moment in the exhilaration of coming undone together, wonders if it would be so bad, after all she’s done. If she can bounce back again and do it with Emma. Emma is whispering now, a dozen reasons to hate Snow on her breath, and Regina touches the heart and thinks about how easy it would be to be like this forever.

 

“Regina, please,” Snow whimpers, and Regina hears it as though it’s the Snow White she’d known before, bane of her existence and nothing more, years of rebuilding gone in an instant. The heart’s magic rushes to her, the two of them forever drawn together, and it comes as a shock when Emma raises it, presses her lips to it and murmurs, “Kill David.” 

 

“Emma?” Snow says, her voice strident, but she’s already standing, already moving, the command impossible to resist. “Emma, oh god. Oh please. Please, _Emma!”_ the word is torn from her lips as David appears at the library entrance, bruised and bloodied as she lifts her arrow.

 

“Kind of sucks, doesn’t it?” Emma says matter-of-factly. “To be forced into something you’ve never wanted? How does it feel, _Mom_? What’s it like when you’re the one scrambling to do what someone else wants?” 

 

Rumple laughs shrilly from the other end of the street. Snow raises her bow with shaking hands. “Emma, I swear, I’ll do anything you want.” There are tears sliding down her cheeks. “I know you’re angry. Kill me if that’s what… what _happened_ to you? Just please, not David. Please not David.” She fires a shot.

 

Her hands are shaking too much for it to be true, but David stares at her in betrayal when it tears into his shoulder. Snow weeps and Emma laughs.

 

“Now I get it, Regina. Why you never killed her. You just wanted her to hurt like you. And killing is so easy.” She kisses Regina again, heedless of Snow raising her bow for another shot, and Regina closes her hand over the heart and takes it. “Stop,” she whispers, and Snow sags to the ground, dropping her bow.

 

“Regina!” Emma says, outraged, and makes a grab for the heart.

 

“You think it’s so simple?” Regina demands, and a desperate plan begins to form in her mind. Reckless, presumptuous, suicidal, but the only way. “You think you understand how to cause suffering just because you’ve suffered? This? This is easy.” She pushes Snow’s heart back into her chest and whirls around. “This is child’s play. And I won’t let it happen on my watch.” 

 

“Regina,” Emma says, her eyes flashing in warning, and there’s magic surging up within her again, strong enough that it makes Regina dizzy to contemplate. “You don’t want to try to stop me.” 

 

She keeps her stance in front of Snow, feels the magic pouring into her, and does nothing to resist. She doesn’t protect herself, doesn’t shrink back, and she can feel it cutting into her, straining at her nerves, wearing away at her skin, ripping and bleeding her out as Emma pours it into her. All her magic is focused only on keeping her in one place, still so she stands in Emma’s way.

 

“What are you doing?” Emma demands. “Why the fuck won’t you defend yourself?” She hurls another blast at Regina and Regina lets it shudder through her, feels nothing but pain for a moment. It isn’t the worst she’s ever experienced, even with all of Emma’s power behind it, and she smiles.

 

Emma doesn’t do well like this, hurting and hurting someone she isn’t furious at. Emma isn’t a bully, _hates_ bullies, and Regina keeps all her energy on staying alive and in place in front of Snow. Behind her, she can hear Snow sobbing, feel hands soft on her back. “Your parents might have done this to you,” she agrees, “But they never would have had to without me. I’m the one you should be punishing.” 

 

“We’ve made our peace.” Emma tries blowing her aside with magic so black that it seeps into Regina’s pores, suffocates her in power she has to struggle to regret. “I won’t blame you for _their_ decisions.” 

 

“Mine. Me, Emma. I’m the one who made you like this, you know that. My curse. My vendetta,” she gasps out. “Me.” 

 

“Stop it!” This new blast burns like too-cold ice, rubs her raw and leaves her gasping for breath. “Would you get out of the way?” Emma snarls, and now she looks even more lost, even more afraid. “Would you…?” 

 

She charges forward, her magic forgotten, and tries to grab Regina, to spin her aside, to move her from her place. Regina stays bolted in place, magic surging around her only to protect her position. “I made you like this, Emma. And I’m so sorry.” 

 

“No.” The darkness in Emma has escaped, swirling around her like a living beast, and she’s huddled in the center of it, alone. The darkness is blinding Regina, a final poison that she can’t push away, and she can feel herself fading at last as Emma struggles to shove her aside. “No, Regina. You’re wrong.” 

 

She thinks of Emma. Emma who does shots with her and whines her way into family dinners and laughs each time like she’s never laughed before. Emma who’s had her world shaken time and again and keeps slogging on, keeps trying. _We’re prisoners to love_. Emma who can make a room brighter just by entering it, who’s taught her more than anyone what it means to be good without hypocrisy. 

 

Emma who’d taught her, along with Henry, what it means to protect the ones you love without losing yourself. “I love you,” she says softly, the darkness filling her throat and lungs so she can’t breathe anymore, and there are black spots in her vision as she manages, “Did you know that?” 

 

Emma catches her, falls to the ground with her, and there’s the light, bursting out of her as though Emma is calling it. There’s still a cloud of darkness around them but it doesn’t touch Regina, no more than before, and Emma’s eyes are wide and frightened. “Regina, oh god. Please, say something. Regina!” 

 

Her arms are curled around Regina’s body, Regina huddled against her, and the magic is healing, light magic pouring from within Regina to protect her at last. Rumple and Ursula have vanished for now, David is holding Snow and they’re both gazing at Emma in despair, the townspeople are beginning to leave at last, but Regina sees so very little of it when Emma is staring at her with such horror. “You don’t need to forgive anyone,” she rasps. “But we all do love you, Emma. Even if we’ve been cowards before. Even if we’ve hurt you. Please, don’t destroy yourself because of us.” 

 

Emma looks up and watches Snow and David, a thousand furious, frustrated emotions on her face. Emma watches them and Regina whispers, “Me too, remember?” and Emma sags because of course she does, of course she knows what happens when rage takes over you. “Victims make new victims.” It goes on and on and never ends, one side after another forging weapons to make battle, thinking little of the children they gift with the burden of power. “Emma, please.”

 

Emma holds her close again and tears slide down into her hair as Emma goes limp around her, clinging to Regina's light as the darkness still hangs over her like a cloud. “Okay,” she whispers against Regina’s forehead, and the darkness is quiet for now. For a bit, until the next time, and the next and the next. “Okay.”


End file.
